After some encouragement from one of her best friends, Lark takes up sexting to pay the bills after loosing her job in stem. At the same time her long time secret crush/ best friend Toby, admits he has feelings for her.


I spent half of this book on the floor laughing and the other half cringing. It was tres spicy but some of the conversations and the clients Lark encountered were just toooo cringe for me.

I loved the relationship between Lark and her 3 female best friends as well as her relationship and friendship with Toby.

A five-star read with text appeal. I enjoyed this one, but I would check the reviews before picking the next one, as this was a great overall story, but it did waver at mid-point. It just got a little repetitive for me, but then it soon picked up and had me roaring again. Lark was adorable for most of the story, but she did need to listen to herself and grow a pair, the way she wouldn’t stand up for herself, or admit to what she was doing. I did see the twist coming, but I adored it, and it made me smile so I didn’t mind. This is light and fluffy, but it also has undercurrents and they don’t always flow smoothly, but they do add a lot, but they did get a little granting when they were aimed at Larks confidence. Do give this a try and give it a read as there are so many characters that will sweep you up.

I wanted to love this one, the premise and overall vibe seemed exactly like something that I would love. Unfortunately, it fell a little flat for me. I found it hard to root for the characters in the end. I did DNF this one at about 50% but the plot felt stale after a while.

Teegan, who works in tech is completely looked over due to being a female and after an incident at work she is fired and turns to sexting as a way to pay her bills for the time. All the while she is nursing a forever crush on her best friend Toby and there are just overall no sparks from the beginning with them it seems. In doing so she is trying to keep her job under wraps from Toby.

Overall this one just wasn't for me but it is an extremely sex and LGBTQ+ positive book which I love

I flew through this book, it was so easy to pick up & I was intrigued to find out what was going to happen! I figured out pretty early doors who cosmickimt was, I did think it was abit of an over react in the end, but I was happy with the outcome!

3 ⭐️ This book started so strong, but by the 50% mark I was underwhelmed and hoping it would end already.

Lark is working in tech, and as many women in STEM, she’s underappreciated, passed up for promotions and barely listened to during meetings. Her friends are supportive enough and although they have very different lives, they all find time to be there for each other, especially her bffs: Teagan and Toby. Toby’s just broke up with his girlfriend, who made him abandon his friendship with Lark. Now that they’re trying to get their friendship back to what it used to be, old feelings and curiosity are coming back up. When an incident at work gets Lark fired, Teagan suggest that Lark could get into sex work -and most specifically, into an app where people can sext for money.

The book’s premise was great. The feminist, pro LGBT+, sex-positive messages made it easy for me to immediately immerse myself into this book, the story and its protagonists. But soon the plot became stale and the progressive, forward-thinking protagonist got old and boring when she couldn’t do anything but complain. And don’t get me wrong, I think complaining is healthy and essential to understand one’s frustrations with life – sometimes it’s necessary to put into words what is wrong in order to make things right. Still, Lark was in constant need of reassurance from everyone but herself, and the spicy moments and themes here, especially taking into account that the book's title is “Text Appeal”, left a lot to be desired. The ending, too, was rushed and the third act conflict problems were resolved and forgiven entirely too easily.

To be honest, I would've given this book a 2.5, but I think a bisexual heroine w/ a lesbian, aro bff deserves the extra 0.5 stars. Still, the pros don’t really outweigh the cons in this one and, in my opinion, I don’t know if I’d recommend this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 5
🌶️.5 /5

*Thank you so much Net Galley for the eARC!* This review has been uploaded to Goodreads.

Honestly, I wanted this book mainly because of the intriguing plot and the amazing cover art, but actually reading the story, I just had a hard time connecting with it. Lark was a mess of a character. She was written as aloof, who couldn’t get her life together. She got herself into a situation she didn’t want nor an understanding about. She seemed too naive to be working at her current job. The Lark I had envisioned in my mind didn’t not match the one that was written in these pages.

The characters did not feel as if they were developing throughout the story. It felt as if there could be more to tell, but the author never dove deeper than the surface. Though there were some funny scenes and the sext were the best part of the book, it was hard to truly enjoy it has a whole when I couldn’t get behind the characters or their romance.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for this ARC

Thank you Netgalley for an arc copy to review.

Lark loses her job when an unsolicited ick pic ends up on screen during a presentation. Needing money and having no luck finding a new job, her friend suggests a job ..."texting". Lark has always been a little awkward in the bedroom so the idea seems beyond outrageous, until she tries it and an income starts coming her way. The process starts making her more comfortable with herself and her own wants. There is one thing she's wanted since they met, her best friend and fellow nerd Toby. He seems interested, but they both have things they aren't telling the other and the relationship they are building could take the hit.

I really enjoyed parts of this book but it just didn't hit the right buttons for me. I just didn't like the characters for a chunk of the book. I think others would love it, the characters just didn't call to me in this one.

Release date is Aug 8 2023

I was really intrigued by the premise and cute cover, but unfortunately this book was a total miss for me. I honestly feel like I could write a 5-page essay of the things I disliked about this book, but first of all I wanna say that from reading other reviews it’s clear that lots of other people like this one so even though it wasn’t my cup of tea it might be yours! Idk, I just didn’t wanna drag this book without saying that first.

I went into this book excited to read a sex worker-positive fluffy and steamy romcom and what I got was… not that. Most of the issues I had with the book centre around the MC, Lark, and her immaturity and inability to make decisions for herself - so much so that she ends up becoming a sex worker at the insistence of her (very irritating) best friend Teagan whilst not wanting this for herself at all. This weird dynamic of her almost being coerced into sexting as a job felt very icky to me and like a poor representation of sex work. I also found it totally implausible that Lark would’ve been able to continue with this job with her seeming total lack of understanding of sex, and her unwillingness to learn. For example, by the mid point of the book when she is supposedly earning a good deal of money from her sexting, she is totally shocked at the suggestion from her friends that she watch porn to get some ideas for her sexts. There are numerous incidences in which Lark is overly bashful or embarrassed about even talking about sex stuff which make it impossible for me to believe she is simultaneously earning a living engaging with that very same sex stuff. She is judgemental and whiny and I really did not enjoy reading her POV for the entire book.

I found the love interest, Toby, to be about as interesting as a plank of wood, and I didn’t think that he and Lark had any chemistry whatsoever. I even found their sex scenes boring. Toby and Lark supposedly have harboured this long-term connection since college but this was entirely told not shown. We are fed this narrative of them having had all these cute moments in the past (all-nighters in college etc.) but NONE of this cute energy comes through in their in-book interactions. I felt this was a big issue with the book as a whole, in that we as a reader are told that two characters have a long standing friendship but this is never shown to us on the page. This made it really hard for me to feel invested in either the love story between Toby and Lark or the friendship between Lark and Teagan. And don’t even get me started on the two other female friends - they are totally interchangeable and forgettable and could easily have been made into one character without making a difference to the book.

I’m aware I haven’t even touched on the bloated deception story arc which is the main third-act conflict of the book, but honestly by the time it was all being played out I was already totally over this book and was just waiting for it to end. It was all very obvious (which can be fine! I was excited to read a You’ve-Got-Mail sort of set up!) and so in my opinion it needed to be played out much earlier in the story to make up for this.

I was also really not a fan of the way in which the book sets up Lark’s firing at the start. For one, this whole debacle goes on way too long for what should just be a quick couple of scenes and then we can get into the real story. I found that it seemed like the author wanted to tackle some really serious issues like workplace sexism and harassment but this did not fit the tone of the book and I feel like in her attempt to cover such a complex topic in a short plot point the author ends up painting these issues in a really reductive light and making all the characters in Lark’s workplace into caricatures. None of this seems like a real scenario and so any point which could have been made about workplace sexism fell flat for me.

There were a number of punctuation and grammar issues throughout the book but hopefully these will be fixed by publication. Also, the text bubbles showed up incredibly small on e-reader and so were very difficult to read, hopefully this will also be fixed by the publisher.

Honestly, I could go on but I’ll stop here because I really don’t want to have to think about this story any longer. I really need to stop being fooled by cute covers.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me read an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was cute, if pretty slow-paced…? A fun read, a cute STEM-adjacent romance, but so many of the characters were irredeemably unlikeable it made it a bit of a drag. I’d love to see more from this author though!

What a cute read!! I really enjoyed lark and Toby’s relationship, seeing it grow in two different ways.

Tbh for a very long while I thought cosmic kismet was really someone else because wouldn’t Toby figure out it was lark right away? But Oh My Gosh the twist was so unexpected and so amazing. It did make me dislike Teagan though.

Anyway 10/10 recommend!! Can’t wait to read more from Amber Roberts!

Thank you, Alcove Press, for allowing me to read Text Appeal early!

Roberts' debut caught my eye because of the cover, but it was the text inside that hit a homerun! She is an author to keep an eye on..

text appeal review
Sugar, spice and everything nice.. except for the Chemical X.
All the ingredients I love are there - good friendships, tech industry, feminism, queer representation, comics, male-dominated workplace critique, texting and even the Hero of Canton. Also I LOVE it when all characters of the book screw up somehow, no one stays righteously in bright white shiny (Firefly, get it?) armor. I love the angst of mixing real life personality and online alter ego, sweet appeal of getting to know other side of the person you think you know. Having said all that, I find the main characters lacking a bit of.. something. I didn’t get the feeling they are friends at all, let alone best friends for over a decade. The story felt a bit stretched at times. And lastly, sex industry is portrayed here like one where women are taking control and making money and profit off of it, but I am kinda convinced it is a field where women are taken advantage of in the worst way, even if it seems like some corners of it are better.
Overall it was a nice read.
Thank you Netgalley for an ARC.

Text Appeal was meh. I really wanted to like it; the premise was great. After Lark loses her job, her best friend sets her up with a job to make some bank while she is unemployed. What's the job? Sexting! And some of the sexts were downright hysterical. I wanted more sexts. They were the best part of the book. I'll leave it at that.

I enjoyed the writing and found it funny and relatable (granted, I've not been in the position Lark is). But I did notice that the reviews are extremely divided, and with such limited space in our libraries, it doesn't seem like a good fit.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove for the ARC.

STEM romance books have made a big surge and I am here for it. I adored this!! There was some laugh out loud moments and alot of romance. This is an amazing story.
I just reviewed Text Appeal by Amber Roberts. #TextAppeal #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL

First off, thank you to the publisher and netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for this honest review.

Unfortunately, this book, was a miss for me. I found the main character to be very grating and the set up to be very cringe. I work in tech, and I know that it is hard for women (I am one) but the way this was written, it seemed apparent that the author had no real world experience. My husband also works in tech and more closely with developers, and while yes sexism is real its not the norm, I don’t want to downplay that, just the way this MC was treated is very old mindset and outdated. I’m sure there are one off cases, but this story was just cringe to me. Also the self taught poor me female character. Gross.

Once the MC got fired (for something she was sexually harassed for) she decides to become an online sex worker. Way to just bring cringe to everything. To think that being a sex worker if hitting rock bottom – again with the old school mindset. Oh and her best friend who is a sex therapist, telling married people to sleep around? Okay again, what is happening here.

I did DNF this book because, I just couldn’t bring myself to read another word. It was just too cringey for me and I hope that in the year 2023 we can stop degrading women this way. Strong women in tech exist, and yes there are barriers, it is possible. Yes, sex workers are people, and they haven’t all hit rock bottom.

And the "chemistry" between the characters felt non existent.

Oh my goodness, this book was so freakin adorable! It was such a fun, sweet, and quick read and I couldn’t stop!

Thank you to NetGalley, Alcove Press and Amber Roberts for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m giving this book a 3 out of 5.

This was an okay read for me. Unfortunately the chemistry between Lark and Toby felt off. Larks best friend Teagan was also very toxic.
I did however like the fact that Lark was an online sex worker because I haven’t read a lot of books with that occupation as the job title.

Text Appeal was such a delightful and charming read. When Lark loses her job, she turns to sexting to pay the bills at the suggestion of a friend. She's not exactly comfortable with it at first — there are a lot of weird and rude guys on the app, which isn't surprising — but slowly, she starts to enjoy it. She starts chatting on the app with a nice, nerdy guy she really likes, while at the same time nursing her years-long crush on her good friend, Toby... and hiding her sexting job from him. Or so she thinks!

All the texts and sexts were a fun element of the story. This book is incredibly sex positive and funny, and the friends to lovers romance is adorable.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC.

I was intrigued by the premise of Text Appeal, but once I started reading it the book very quickly fell flat for me and I ended up DNFing it around 50%.

The main character loses her tech job and starts working sexting with strangers on an app for money when she cannot find a new job. She has a crush on her closest male friend as well and from what I gather, he is the one on the other end of the messages she is sending through her work chat.

This book didn't work for me for a couple of reasons. The characters are very one dimensional- one is just a mom, one is just the outgoing sex toy sales girl, etc. There didn't seem to be more to them than the label placed on them. There was zero chemistry between the love interests, and the writing was stilted and awkward to read. The pacing is also quite off, where nothing is happening and then suddenly we are jumping ahead and then nothing is happening again.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.